The Executive Director of the Harrison-Clarksburg Health Department said there’s mostly bad news—although some good news–regarding the opioid epidemic in West Virginia and how it relates to the rest of the country.

“Unfortunately in Harrison County, we have higher data showing us in the southern coal belt,” Joseph C. Bundy, formerly the President of the West Virginia Association of Local Health Departments, said Thursday. “In the southern counties, they have a bigger issue. Unfortunately, in Harrison County, a lot of these maps will show Harrison County’s in darker red just like some of these other counties.”

Bundy said one of the issues that makes Harrison County look more like one of West Virginia’s southern counties in terms of opioid abuse is it’s inclusion in the I-79 corridor.

“I think it’s several issues,” he said. “I think it’s definitely a trafficking issue, which we have had for many, many years. And it continues. That’s why we’re taking a quick look at this thing.”

Bundy was attending Thursday’s monthly West Virginia Association of Local Health Departments meeting in Flatwoods, which featured a higher-than-normal volume of local, state, and out-of-state speakers to discuss the opioid epidemic and the process of “harm reduction.”

“Harm reduction is a program in which a community undertakes to do everything they possibly can to help the person that is using drugs intravenously to reduce harm in their life,” he said.